It's the 24th of October, 2022 and writing the date reminds me that it's my sister's Birthday and I need to reach out. Excuse me one second. Alright, mission accomplished. So I'm sitting in a house on the shore of Lake Atitlan in central Guatemala, it's somewhere in the 70's and the sun is still shining. I say still because if I've learned nothing else in the last couple weeks or so it's that it will rain today. The sun comes up around 5:45am and makes way for a calm morning with coffee, some journaling and a little guitar. The lake is typically calm and serene until about now, 2:15pm, when you can see the waves start to pick up a bit and the lanchas (boat taxis) start to run a little slower. The rain won't last long, just enough to cool things down and give the scenery a little drink. The volcano I have coffee with and watch appear out of the dark every morning is starting to fade into the clouds and the banana trees are starting to sway in the breeze. I read that back to see how many spelling errors I made and all I can think is man, I'm the luckiest fucker alive.
We caught a lancha this morning over to San Marcos, a few villages to the west, and grabbed a few groceries as well as a waffle and some hot cocao at the Circles Cafe. We can take a tuk tuk here in Santa Cruz up the hill into the main village for necessities but the selection is a lot better in San Marcos and we even have the option of buying a 50Q bag of weed off Harry at the boat dock. Harry is the name I gave him the first time we met when he said we'd have to "hurry" and I mistook him for saying his name was Harry. I think he was wanting to hurry as there was a cop on the dock. The same cop who was there today. I can only assume Harry and the cop have an arrangement worked out in order for business to be conducted right there in the open and he only wanted to hurry the first time as it was the weekend and I wasn't the only tourist he wanted to talk to. Anyway, we didn't get any smokeables but we did find some nice avocados, a ripe pineapple and a red pepper. I also scored huge with some dark roast coffee beans and a fresh loaf of German style seed bread and let me tell you in a world of tortillas, a good bread find is good. Really good.
As for the rest of the day Jess has some prep work to do for a busy work day tomorrow. I'm going to finish writing this blog and then I'll make some ginger tea, maybe toast up some of that bread and work on a new song. Once evening rolls around we'll make some dinner, light a fire and put some music on. I've really been enjoying the new Tina Dico record, Bitte Sma Ryk, and try as I might I haven't worn it out quite yet. Thank you Mark Whitcomb for the recommendation. As for that new song part...it's been a long time. To be honest I'm not sure I've had a whole lot of interest in writing for a while. If I'm truly being honest, I'm not certain I've had much interest in playing music at all. For a long time. But, that volcano is a persuasive friend and if nothing else I have time. Lots of time. More now that I don't drink. In fact, it's been a little more than 3 years since I did and come to think of it that was probably around the time I last wrote on this blog. I've been pretty quiet about the topic and perhaps it's about time to share a little. But for now, we just caught a scorpion in the bathroom and I'm a little freaked out so I'm gonna go get loaded on pineapple. By the way, 50Q is about $7USD....
